1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an error notification method, an error notification program product and an error notification device, and more particularly to an error notification method, an error notification program product and an error notification device capable of notifying an appropriate notification destination of occurrence of an error.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a case where printers or other devices are shared in a network environment. When an error occurs in such a device, it is necessary to receive information (support information) for addressing the error and to actually handle the error by referring to the information.
When the device is used in the network environment, however, if an error occurs some time after start of operation, the location where the support information is received may not be the same as the location where the operator is present upon occurrence of the error. If the location where the error has occurred or where the error should be addressed is distant from the location where the support information is received, the user may feel very inconvenient.
As a way of solving such a problem, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 08-223396 discloses a management system of an image forming device where, when a copier management device receives fault data in the form of a routine communication report from a copying machine, it transmits the report to a host computer that is specified in accordance with information specifying the type of the fault and the received time.
Further, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-236576 discloses a technique where electronic equipment such as a digital composite machine diagnoses the state of itself and transmits the information showing the state to a transmission destination according to the diagnosis result.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-001128 discloses a printer which transmits information of various contents/uses such as job information, consumables information and others, to a transmission destination according to the information
Still further, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-045551 discloses an image processor where, when an error is left as it is or a printed matter or an original is left as it is, a user terminal having designated the processing or a pre-registered notification destination terminal is informed of the neglect.
In the methods disclosed in the above documents, however, the information about occurrence of an error, its time, or the information of consumables is transmitted to the destination according to the state of the equipment. It may not be transmitted accurately to the location of the user who should handle the error.
Further, in the case where an error occurs in a so-called work flow, which is a combination of jobs that are executed at prescribed timings, a person corresponding to the job should be notified of the error. The notification may not be transmitted to an appropriate destination with the methods disclosed in the above-described patent documents.